4 ms·

That depends on the multiplication factor. You can get a unit of meat from one animal. You can get N units of meat out of cells of one animal. Even if the trea

That depends on the multiplication factor. You can get a unit of meat from one animal. You can get N units of meat out of cells of one animal. Even if the treatment doesn't change, the production of meat becomes N times less cruel after the switch.

randomdata 3y ago
Do you think this will compel people towards meat-only diets to avoid the billions of insects and other critters harmed in the production of plant-based food? Realistically, meat is N+M, where M is the cruelty towards animals in the production of food for animals. But M still remains if people keep eating plants.
- rhn_mk1 3y ago
  The nutrients for the cell lines are still going to come from plants, so I don't see any reduction in the cruelty involved from the plant side, unless the new way allows using less of that.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    Does that suggest that it could actually lead to more total animal cruelty? I expect, for example, cattle grazing grasslands is less cruel to the aforementioned critters than a mechanical harvest. The latter is downright brutal to animals. Indeed, if you save a cattle beast, but harm 100 additional crickets, you would be much, much worse off with respect to animal cruelty.
    - rhn_mk1 3y ago
      If the majority of farm animals get their feed from grazing, then replacing them as sources of nutrients with mechanically harvested plants might come out even. As I understand it though, the vast majority of cattle are currently being fed mechanically harvested plants, so they can be cut out of the nutrient pathway without any need to increase suffering by the way of mechanical harvest.
      - randomdata 3y ago
        > If the majority of farm animals get their feed from grazing, then replacing them as sources of nutrients with mechanically harvested plants might come out even. Why even? Rule of thumb is that it takes an acre of grass to feed a cattle beast. If that acre is, instead, 'clear cut' multiple times each year, over several years to match what would be fed to a live animal, to ship the product off to a factory, only one animal living in that grass will experience the cruelty? That seems surprising. An acre of grass provides a significant habitat. And that is if grass remains the source of nutrients. Harvested grass is hard to move efficiently. If, say, a row crop is used instead then there is an attack on the habitat even before harvest begins. Row crops regularly come under fire because of how unfriendly they are to everything else. > As I understand it though, the vast majority of cattle are currently being fed mechanically harvested plants While that is true – the vast majority of cattle are raised on grass and finished with corn, the latter of which being almost certainly mechanically harvested – it is also not binary. According to Oklahoma State University, most cattle in the United States will spend most of their lives on pastures and grasslands and then finished in feedlots, the latter of which accounting for 15-35% of their lives according to their figures. This does mean that mechanically harvested food does account for some of the nutrient requirements for most cattle, but there is more to the story.
        rhn_mk1 3y ago
        I think now you're in the territory of gathering real data. To my best knowledge, the amount of mechanical harvest needed to feed an animal one unit of protein is no more than 4 units of protein in the most optimistic case[0]. Even with some fudge factor, it is enough to give me an 80% certainty that cutting the animals out reduces net cruelty. I don't know the conversion factor for lab meat, but I expect it to be somewhere between eating mechanically harvested plants and regular meat. There's also the aspect of how you weigh suffering of different beings, which is a complicated enough topic that I won't get into right now[1]. I'll get back to it once feeding cattle with harvested grain becomes rare. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/protein-efficiency-of-meat-and-dairy-production https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/protein-efficiency-of-mea... [1] https://reducing-suffering.org/crop-cultivation-and-wild-animals/ https://reducing-suffering.org/crop-cultivation-and-wild-ani...

randomdata 3y ago

Do you think this will compel people towards meat-only diets to avoid the billions of insects and other critters harmed in the production of plant-based food? Realistically, meat is N+M, where M is the cruelty towards animals in the production of food for animals. But M still remains if people keep eating plants.

rhn_mk1 3y ago
The nutrients for the cell lines are still going to come from plants, so I don't see any reduction in the cruelty involved from the plant side, unless the new way allows using less of that.
- randomdata 3y ago
  Does that suggest that it could actually lead to more total animal cruelty? I expect, for example, cattle grazing grasslands is less cruel to the aforementioned critters than a mechanical harvest. The latter is downright brutal to animals. Indeed, if you save a cattle beast, but harm 100 additional crickets, you would be much, much worse off with respect to animal cruelty.
  - rhn_mk1 3y ago
    If the majority of farm animals get their feed from grazing, then replacing them as sources of nutrients with mechanically harvested plants might come out even. As I understand it though, the vast majority of cattle are currently being fed mechanically harvested plants, so they can be cut out of the nutrient pathway without any need to increase suffering by the way of mechanical harvest.
    - randomdata 3y ago
      > If the majority of farm animals get their feed from grazing, then replacing them as sources of nutrients with mechanically harvested plants might come out even. Why even? Rule of thumb is that it takes an acre of grass to feed a cattle beast. If that acre is, instead, 'clear cut' multiple times each year, over several years to match what would be fed to a live animal, to ship the product off to a factory, only one animal living in that grass will experience the cruelty? That seems surprising. An acre of grass provides a significant habitat. And that is if grass remains the source of nutrients. Harvested grass is hard to move efficiently. If, say, a row crop is used instead then there is an attack on the habitat even before harvest begins. Row crops regularly come under fire because of how unfriendly they are to everything else. > As I understand it though, the vast majority of cattle are currently being fed mechanically harvested plants While that is true – the vast majority of cattle are raised on grass and finished with corn, the latter of which being almost certainly mechanically harvested – it is also not binary. According to Oklahoma State University, most cattle in the United States will spend most of their lives on pastures and grasslands and then finished in feedlots, the latter of which accounting for 15-35% of their lives according to their figures. This does mean that mechanically harvested food does account for some of the nutrient requirements for most cattle, but there is more to the story.
      - rhn_mk1 3y ago
        I think now you're in the territory of gathering real data. To my best knowledge, the amount of mechanical harvest needed to feed an animal one unit of protein is no more than 4 units of protein in the most optimistic case[0]. Even with some fudge factor, it is enough to give me an 80% certainty that cutting the animals out reduces net cruelty. I don't know the conversion factor for lab meat, but I expect it to be somewhere between eating mechanically harvested plants and regular meat. There's also the aspect of how you weigh suffering of different beings, which is a complicated enough topic that I won't get into right now[1]. I'll get back to it once feeding cattle with harvested grain becomes rare. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/protein-efficiency-of-meat-and-dairy-production https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/protein-efficiency-of-mea... [1] https://reducing-suffering.org/crop-cultivation-and-wild-animals/ https://reducing-suffering.org/crop-cultivation-and-wild-ani...